President Hassan Rouhani defended his administration’s economic performance just days after Iran’s supreme leader called for greater emphasis on a resistance economy.

At a meeting of the High Council and Managing Directors of the Free Trade Zones, Rouhani said, “One of the important parts and an emphasis of the policies of economic resistance is, constructive engagement with the world and the path of our administration … has been economic resistance.”

Rouhani was responding to criticism from conservative critics who attacked the administration for focusing on foreign policy while neglecting to implement the two-year-old economic plan that calls for a reliance on domestic abilities. Their attacks were prompted by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s designation for the Iranian New Year as the year of Resistance Economy: Action and Implementation. Critics felt that Rouhani’s focus on foreign relations was a diversion to the implementation of the resistance economy.

Addressing those critics, Rouhani said, “The resistance economy will materialize with action, planning and without slogans.”